The competition to replace Yoshihide Suga is intensifying, and Japan is eager for charm | Coronavirus pandemic news

Tokyo, Japan – After this veteran politician chose, the race to replace Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is heating up Don’t run When elections are held at the end of this month, the leading Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be re-elected.

The four main competitors are 58-year-old Vaccine Tsar Kono, 64-year-old former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, also 64 years old. The 60-year-old Koichi Sanae, a conservative nationalist Minister Shinzo Abe who was supported by the former prime minister, announced her election on Wednesday, becoming the second woman after her current post. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike Come to challenge the character.

The general election must be held before November 28.

Given the pronounced sense of malaise surrounding the LDP’s main rival, the Constitutional Democratic Party, it is likely that whoever replaces Suga will also go on to win the election.

For Lully Miura, director of the Yamaneko Research Institute, the election may be too early for Sanae Koichi. The former Minister of the Interior “has a very small chance of winning the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential race. This is her first run. She has not shown her quality as a leader, so she is unlikely to get as much as Kono or Ishiba. vote.”

Miura believes that the new generation of Liberal Democratic Party members may be inclined to the young main candidate, Taro Kono. “But what complicates the situation is the votes of local party members, which accounted for half of the first vote. These may flow to more well-known and stable candidates. So if Shichang runs for the election, he will definitely get a lot of votes.”

At a time when there are growing tensions with regional neighbors over territorial disputes and cybersecurity issues, no matter who gets the party chairmanship, it will affect Japan’s foreign policy direction.

“In terms of foreign policy, Fumio Kishida is a dove,” Miura said, “Ishiba is more hawkish. Kono is by no means a dovish, and he is even aggressive on some historical issues related to the Republic of Korea. High school one is The most hawkish of them. She has promised to give Japan the ability to fight against China and North Korea. [North Korea]. “

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced last week that he will not run for the leader of the ruling party after a turbulent year in power. [File: Behrouz Mehri/Pool Photo via AP Photo]

After a year of severe challenges, Suga left.

The long-term lieutenant of the former Shinzo Abe took office a year ago. Since then, the coronavirus pandemic has surged, putting pressure on governments determined to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in spite of public opposition. The Paralympic Games ended on Sunday.

Many people accuse the Prime Minister of being weak under the pressure of the International Olympic Committee to host events. His critics believe that his insistence on proceeding as planned would endanger public health.

After the difficult start of the vaccine launch, by the time the Olympics began, only 32% of people in the country had received at least one coronavirus vaccine.

Although there were basically no spectators in the event, and there were almost no accidents in the Olympic bubble itself, the Olympics coincided with The explosion of Delta variants In the host city of Tokyo, there has been a significant increase in daily cases nationwide.

As the political scientist Masaichi Ida pointed out, the Kan government Many of these problems have been inherited from Abe, He resigned on September 16 last year. “However, we should also admit it,” Ida added. “It was during Suga Yoshihide’s leadership that the public’s indifference to emergency measures—that is, calls not to go out—has become a clear trend.”

Low bars

Local election failures in Nagano, Hiroshima, and Hokkaido exacerbated Suga’s failure to respond to the epidemic. By August, his public approval rate fell to a low of 29%, which was lower than the 30% mark generally believed by the Japanese prime minister.

When the Liberal Democratic Party candidate lost last month in the election for mayor in Suga’s hometown of Yokohama, his position became untenable.

Just as the Prime Minister insisted that he would stay in office to learn about his work in fighting the pandemic, heavyweights in the party still forced him to resign, fearing embarrassment in future elections.

Taro Kono, who is in charge of vaccination in Japan, is expected to be supported by young Liberal Democratic Party politicians and is also very popular with the public. [File: Yuri Kageyama/AP Photo]

Last year, after Shinzo Abe (second from left) announced his resignation, former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (left) and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba (right) both competed with Yoshihide Suga for party leadership, but they were unsuccessful. [File: Eugene Hoshiko, Pool via AP Photo]

Since its establishment in 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party has been in power for only three years. The party lost control in the 2009 election last time and quickly regained control from the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan. The huge victory in the 2012 general election gave Abe the task of pursuing the long-term partisan goals of constitutional reform and Abenomics’ fiscal plan.

In the end, Yoshihide Suga failed to get out of the shadow of his predecessor.

He also felt unable to communicate with the public, especially in connection with the pandemic.

“He is a terrible communicator,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Tokyo Temple University. “Being grumpy and avoiding at press conferences, being dull in dietary debates, like a self-driving robot. Drones are more important than people who can inspire.

“He is a forbidding number two [to Abe] But as prime minister, he was disappointed because of his lack of leadership qualities. For someone who is known for getting things done, his performance is poor and often appears to be beyond his depth. “

However, Suga’s failure may pave the way for his successor.

Kingston said: “Because of his poor performance and minimal achievements, Suga Yoshihide set a lower standard for his potential successors.” “A good communicator is good at providing a vision of hope and persuading voters to believe in the Liberal Democratic Party. Being able to deliver on the promise of economic recovery and the blueprint for getting rid of the pandemic is of utmost importance.”

Kono is currently in the lead, at least in opinion polls.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and public opposition, Suga continues to advance the Olympic and Paralympic Games that ended last week[EnnioLeanza/EPA[EnnioLeanza/EPA[EnnioLeanza/EPA[EnnioLeanza/EPA

The outspoken, social media savvy politician won support for an immunization program that made Japan a world leader in vaccination-according to the latest data from the Reuters COVID-19 tracker, approximately 55.6 % Of the population was vaccinated with both vaccines-and successfully avoided most of the criticism of Suga due to the early failure of the launch.

According to conservative Liberal Democratic Party standards, he is also considered a maverick. The Minister of Administrative Reform, he decided last year to oppose some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers by canceling the “Aegis Ashore” missile defense system. This signifies that he is a decisive leader who can make difficult policy decisions.

Elsewhere, when former foreign minister Kishida became the first candidate to openly challenge Yoshihide Suga’s party leadership in August, he expressed willingness to promote change.

As a liberal in the party, Kishida’s campaign was designed to capitalize on the dissatisfaction of the young Liberal Democratic Party legislators against voters’ dissatisfaction with the outgoing government. He promised to shorten the term of office of Liberal Democratic Party executives to three years in order to make room for more young people in the party’s leadership structure.

Hard for women

With the retirement of a generation of lawmakers, the party is undergoing a phase of rebirth. Of the 276 Liberal Democratic Party members of the House of Commons, almost half are under 60 years old, and the average age is now 59 years old.

At the same time, as a perennial candidate for the leadership, Ishiba has been working hard to win support from the party. The former defense minister’s outspokenness made him a favorite of the public, but made him few friends in the party, which is angry at his past criticisms of the Abe government. He seemed to hint on Tuesday that he would not run for leadership given Kono’s growing momentum.

Takaichi officially announced her candidacy at a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon. After receiving Abe’s support over the weekend, Japanese media reported that she also confirmed the support of the 20 Liberal Democratic Party MPs required for the bid.

The need for support is often seen as a stumbling block for the male-dominated Liberal Democratic Party’s female candidates, with men making up 92% of the Liberal Democratic Party’s MPs. If the leadership of the high school is successful, she will become the first female prime minister in the country’s history.

Although this is a big step forward for women in a country that continues to struggle with global low levels of gender equality, the firm and conservative politics of the freshman senior year may disappoint those who want an immediate impact in creating a level playing field for women.

For example, in the past, she opposed the right of women to use their surnames after marriage, and visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which is a controversial place, and convicted war criminals are also remembered.

On Wednesday, September 8, 2021, people wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and walk on the streets of Tokyo (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

“Unlike the Republican Party in the United States,” said Miura of the Yamaneko Research Institute, “Japanese social conservatives are not trying to change the status quo. On the contrary, they are trying to keep it.”

“Takaichi, if elected, will become a leader for other women. However, because she must convince people that she is a’true conservative’, Japanese society will not undergo radical changes during her tenure.”

After a year of unprecedented challenges, the government seems to hobble freely from one mistake to the next, but most of the public’s need for change may only be met by a high-level change of face.

For Jeff Kingston of Temple University, “Kono seems to be the best person to press the reset button, wake up party members, and reach out to non-party voters.”

Regardless of who the Liberal Democratic Party chooses, voters will soon have a say. The party will hope that the new leader can calm public dissatisfaction and continue to hold office for more than a year under the management of Yoshihide Suga.